10,000 Gallons Of Tainted Alcohol Seized From Mexican Resorts

Those who vacation at their favorite hot spots need to be a lot more careful about what they order to drink at hotel or resort. The same popular vacation locations for families have just been found to have a huge underground alcohol ring going on for years.

Mexican regulators raided 31 hot spots in Cancun and Playa del Carmen this August as part of an effort to crack down on illegal alcohol — a black market that came into the national spotlight after a Wisconsin woman’s alcohol-linked death at a posh Mexican resort.

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Regulators, who did not release the company’s name, raided not only resorts, but also nightclubs and restaurants in the area. They seized 10,000 gallons of tainted alcohol from a manufacturing company that supplies booze to those popular restaurants, nightclubs and resorts.

The raids came after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a series of articles about how dozens of tourists who had visited upscale resorts in Cancun and Playa del Carmen complained of blacking out after drinking a small amount of alcohol. Some tourists, the newspaper reported, said they were assaulted and robbed after they lost consciousness.

The liquor, which might have been bootlegged, may have been “infused with grain alcohol or dangerous concentrations of methanol, cheaper alternatives to producing ethanol,” The Journal Sentinel reported.

Officials shut down operations at least two bars, including one at the resort Iberostar Paraiso Maya, located in the complex where a 20-year-old Wisconsin woman was found unconscious in a pool in January. Abbey Conner, who was on vacation with her family at the time, drowned after drinking with her brother at the resort’s lobby bar. She was declared brain dead after being flown back to Florida.